NEW RECIPES FOR THE NEW YEAR

Hello guys! Welcome 2013 and for the new year, I have prepared lots of new recipes and new cooking tips for this year. I have just completed my new recipe book that will be published by February and I am already excited about it.

Last year was a good year for me and my restaurant business. Just for December last year, I have to make shifts for the events and parties that were held in the restaurant. I even made some kitchen renovations just to widen the floor area of the dining area, to accommodate more customers in the kitchen. Basically, 2012 was a good year to a chef like me.

For 2013, more recipes will be prepared in my kitchen and more tips in cooking will be shared and that is my pledge for this year. My chef friends are also contributing to the good news in the restaurant and I am just happy and excited for these happenings.

HOW TO COOK USING A PRESSURE COOKER

Having a pressure cooker really makes the cooking easier. But many of us does not know how to cook using a pressure cooker. Pressure cookers are made to make a hard meat for stew soft and tender for cooking. Usually beef, pork bones and pork legs are just some of the goodies that are cooked using the pressure cooker. This is the correct steps in using a pressure cooker:

1. Clean up the pressure cooker. Usually a pressure cooker has a rubber, a basin plate and a pounder, the one you put on top and makes the sound when it boils.
2. Chop the meat that you want to cook using the pressure cooker. 
3. Place the meat inside the pressure cooker, make sure that the rubber is place on the cover of the pressure cooker. Cover the pressure cooker.
4. place the pounder on top of the pressure cooker.
5. Set the heat gradually. The counting of the minutes usually starts when the pressure cooker starts making the pounding sounds.
6. Usually it would take around 30-45 minutes to cook a hard meat.
7. Never remove the pounder or open the pressure cooker when it is still hot. It would really cause you a lot of trouble and even injury.
8. Place the pressure cooker under the faucet and slowly open the valve to easy the hotness of the pressure cooker.
9. Slowly remove the pounder and open the pressure cooker for the meat that you are cooking.

Having a pressure cooker is really a big help and you can use it for your cooking. 

THINGS TO DO BEFORE STARTING TO COOK

Many people love to cook and they usually end up desperate. It is because they don't prepare the things to be cook. As a chef, here are my tips before starting to cook:

1. Make sure that your ingredients are already prepared.
2. Make sure that the kitchen is clean and conducive to cooking.
3. It would be best that spices be prepared in serving plate so that cooking will be fast and easy.
4. Make sure that the pan or frying pan is ready and clean.

With this tips, cooking will be easy and fast.

HOW TO COOK GARLIC

Garlic is one of the spices that I like the most. Garlic adds up to the taste of every recipe there is in this world. It is said that if a recipe does not have a garlic on it, then there is something wrong in the recipe. It may seem easy to look at but cooking garlic also varies from chef to chef. 

In cooking garlic, one must know if the recipe that he is cooking requires the garlic to be brown or just the flavoring to add up to the taste. Garlic really cooks fast and overcooking it may loose the taste of garlic. Here are the tips that I believe that can be helpful for those who are learning to cook garlic:

• Chop garlic according to your desired sizes.
• Prepare the pan and heat it just in low temperature.
• Fry the garlic in just 10 seconds.

Cooking garlic is really easy. You don't have to earn a chef degree just to cook garlic. Happy cooking. 

TIPS ON HOW TO COOK VEGETABLES

Cooking vegetables and eating it is one of my favorite dishes. I always make sure that in a week, a special vegetable recipe my be prepared and shared in the family. Cooking vegetables may look easy...but you're wrong. It takes a great skill and passion in cooking vegetables. This is what I like to share to all the people reading this vegetable post of mine. 

In cooking vegetables, one must know the following tips before cooking and these are:

• Select the vegetable that is fresh and pesticide free.
• Wash vegetables and drain it totally free of water.
• Never over cook the vegetables. It would only take 3 minutes for leafy type vegetables to cook and 5 minutes to 10 minutes for hard kind of vegetables.
• Steaming is always the best way to cook vegetables. Oil free cooking is always ideal.

These are just few tips before cooking vegetables. Remember that freshness is always the key in having a delicious and tasty vegetable dish at your own home. 

How to Measure Sugar Precisely

How to Measure Sugar Precisely:

To get exact level cup measures of sugar, spoon into dry metal or plastic measuring cups, then level by scraping excess sugar from top of cup with straight-edged knife.

COOKING SECRET

In cooking, to make a fried dish more tasty consider putting lots of garlic. Fried the garlic for it produces a tasty aroma on the fried food. Fry the garlic first then add the meat that you will be frying. The cooking secret is tones of garlic.

KITCHEN TIPS

Ginger Flavor

Before chopping ginger, sprinkle with a little sugar. The sugar helps spread the flavor of the ginger.

Tasty Meat

For better result, marinate meat the day before for pork inihaw, barbecue, pork asado and beef tapa.

BREADING MEAT

When breading meat, use one hand for wet ingredients and the other hand for dry ingredients. By this, you be assured that the breading is clean.

KITCHEN TIPS: CANNED SALMON

Pink canned salmon is cheaper than the red salmon and tastes just as good. if you want, you may tint it with red food coloring-not too red, just pinker-and the family will never know the difference.

HOW TO KEEP THE FRESHNESS OF THE SHRIMP

This a wonderful tip for those who are cooking shrimps. Usually shrimps are bought in the supermarket. This shrimps are them placed in the refrigerator before it will be cooked. But the question, how to keep the freshness of the shrimps, even it have been stored in the refrigerator?

The answer to this question is very simple. All you have to is to soak frozen shrimps in ice cold salted water for 10 minutes. This will make the shrimps taste fresh as if it was never been frozen. Very easy ha!

KITCHEN TIPS: THAWING SHRIMPS

Thawing shrimps, to prevent growth of bacteria, thaw shrimps in the refrigerator instead of room temperature. This is always what I do to make the shrimp dishes well prepared. This tip in thawing shrimps is being thought in the culinary school. I learn this there when I was still studying.

KITCHEN TIPS

The simplest form of using milk is as beverages. It can be also used as ingredient in cream soups, puddings and custards. This is a very simple kitchen tip that can be very useful in all kitchen or cooking preparations that involves milk.

UNFREEZING THE MEAT EASILY

I am using a high freezing machine in my restaurant. It is because it preserves the freshness of the meats that I use and cook in my restaurant. Many of my customers would ask me about how to unfreeze the meat easily, considering that I am using this type of freezer in my restaurant. As an expert chef, I learned this strategy of unfreezing meat easily by my own experience. This I would share to all.

The trick of unfreezing meat is easy. Others would submerge the meat into the water and let it stay there for about 20 to 30 minutes until the meat unfreezes. That kind of style of unfreezing meat is also good. But it would unfreeze faster when just putting it in the chopping board. Let the meat stay there until the meat unfreezes. The style is faster compared with the submerging style into the water.

Now you know, the best way to unfreeze meat is just placing it on top of the chopping board. There are others more to unfreeze meats. But for me this is the best way to do it. By this, you can cook immediately without any delay to your restaurant customers.

LEARNING HOW TO COOK IS FUN

I started cooking when I was 15 years old. I have no formal training that time about cooking. So, I learned through trial and error. I remember my first viand that I was cooking was pancit canton or commonly know as noodle special. Nobody told me what to do. I just remembered the ingredients when we ate at a restaurant in downtown area. The only thing in my mind was to cooking the food and let others eat it. I was not concern about the outcome just to be able to cook was fine for me that time.

In the kitchen, I gathered all the ingredients and spices that I thought were part in cooking the pancit canton. I was full of guts and scared. But I was confident that I can get through it. I first cooked the meat until golden brown and add the garlic and other ingredients. The last part of my cooking was the add up of the noodles into the wok. I let it simmer and waited until the sayote and the carrots were already fine to eat. Saltiness was a problem for me. I could not distinguish what is salty and what is not. Since it was my first time to cook, I was in a wild guess about everything.

The first customers that ate my pancit canton were my brothers. After they tasted the food, they immediately made me the cook for tomorrow. After cooking my first food, I realiazed so many things. Cooking is fun and exciting. It is like a chemistry class, you mix and the end product is something good.

Just a tip: when you over put salt in your food in cooking, it would be best to place some potatoes to neutralize the saltiness in the food that you are cooking.

SELECTING THE RIGHT FRESH FISH

Aside from cooking, chefs like me must also know how to distinguish a fresh fish from a spoiled one. I do, most of the time, the buying of the ingredients that I am going to use in every dish that I prepare. I must make sure that the things that I buy are fresh and in condition for cooking and eating as well.

In buying a fish that you are going to cook, I would suggest that you look at the eyes of the fish first. if you see blood over it, that means that the fish that you are looking at is no longer fresh. It would also be best to look at the gills of the fish. I white gills means that the fish is dead a long time ago and if it is red, that means that the fish was a fresh catch by the fisherman who did it. Aside from the two parts, you can also try to feel the body of the fish. A slippery fish means that it is not fresh. You can also smell the fish. A good smell means that it is still good for cooking. if it smells funny, that means that no cooking is required. With this simple tips in checking the fish before buy it was helpful to those who are attempting to buy a fish from the market area.

GARLIC KNOWS BEST

I am a big fan of cooking and if I rate a spice that would do wonders in cooking, that would be the garlic. Garlic has been the most used vegetable spice right now. I know many chefs and culinary experts would agree to me about garlic.

Garlic is said to be the wonder spice in cooking. It brings out the right taste and flavor in every dish that is cooked in the kitchen. When cooking a dish with garlic, it would be best not to over cook the garlic. Because when the garlic is overcooked, it would taste bitter and adds a strange taste to the food that you are going to cook. In frying meat, fry first the meat and then the garlic. That is the most basic in cooking. There are times that garlic is tastier when totally fried. This is only happens when cooking peanuts in oil. A fried dish without garlic is incomplete. It is like a puzzle, the garlic is the missing jigsaw to complete the puzzle.

DOING THE HOUSE COOKING WITH CLASS

When I first tried cooking, I thought I was going to have a problem, especially mixing all the ingredients in the wok. I never had a formal education yet when I started cooking during my elementary years. All I know that I must have all the ingredients that I will be needing for the viand that I am going to cook. Besides, I knew my brothers will still eat the food that I am cooking no matter what the outcome was. That was how confident I was when I start to cook.

My first viand that I was planning to cook was the simple Lapu-lapu fish sweet and sour. I remembered that right because I was the one that went to the market to buy the type of fish that I was going to cook. After acquiring the main ingredient which was the fish, I need to buy also the spices and the vegetables that form part of the dish that I was cooking. Just a piece of advise, it would be better to buy all the necessary ingredient for cooking in the market. Because the market has everything that you will be needing.

After acquiring all, I started chopping and started the wok on fire. Then the rest was history. Now, I am doing the cooking in the kitchen with style. I love cooking and that is what I do best.

COOKING DEMO

This morning I got a call from a good friend way back in the culinary school. He is now a host of a cooking show that is being aired over the local channel. he told me that he wants to invite me in his cooking show as guest. He added that I will also do some demo cooking for the audience. He told me too that I will be the one to choose which dish I want to cook on the show. That is where I felt pressured about cooking. In next week, I will be the guest of their cooking show. I think I have to prepare what I will be cooking on the show.

I am thinking of chicken or beef as my main dish. For my side dish, I am thinking of carrot strips as side dish. For the drink, shake mango with watermelon. I am also thinking of cooking relyenong bangus. That is a local dish that is ever present in every occasion. I hope I remember all the details of the dish that I am going to prepare for the cooking show. I know that I can do this. My friend also told me that I should be jolly on set since they do a live cooking show. This is going to be my first live appreance on television and it is on a cooking show with my friend.

KITCHEN HEAVEN

The kitchen is the cleanest place in the house and that I can attest to. My kitchen is my most favorite place in my house. This is the place where I get to express my brilliancy in cooking and the canvass of my work art are the dish plate and those people who tell me your cooking is great! Most of my visitors would immediately go to my kitchen, especially when I am cooking something. The aroma and the fresh smell of good food awaiting to be serve.

One friend of mine told me to try to venture into the catering business. Because the food and dishes that I prepare are always demanded for more. I only cook for my family but I am thinking of allowing more people to taste the good food that I cook.

I personally clean my kitchen. I see to it that after I cook, I immediately clean and wash all the dishes and utensils that I used for cook. Fruit peelings and vegetable cuts must be discarded immediately for it may cause some stinky smell in the kitchen. Many would ask me about my kitchen and I always tell them that my kitchen is a heaven for me.